


Our love stories are war stories

by hydriotaphia



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Love, M/M, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:49:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydriotaphia/pseuds/hydriotaphia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t worry,” Iceman says. “This isn’t a torrid love affair, and we’re not fucking Romeo and Juliet.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our love stories are war stories

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 'Oorah! - A Gen Kill Multigenre Porn Fest.' My eternal thanks to Valmouth, who sees the good in my stories and then helps me see it too. 
> 
> Note: There is some consensual humiliation!kink and use of abelist words.

She calls after the show blows him back into a spotlight, right after the fourth episode. Says hi like it hasn’t been years since they spoke the same language to each other.

 

Around her, Brad’s wary. He wears his heart on his sleeve, he can’t change that, but the trick he learned long ago is to have many hearts and to shuffle them like a pack of cards so that the one you want is always at the bottom, safely hidden away.

 

“I saw,” she says. “I watched the show. It’s- it’s illuminating.”

 

He knows what’s in the fourth episode; he fucking _knows_. The house is quiet behind him, which is the only blessing. His hand tightens on the phone, pulse dancing quick-quick-slow as he begins to regulate his breathing.

 

“I had no idea what you did over there, what you saw.” Her voice softens, “It’s been years since you actually talked about any of that.”

 

“It’s not your business anymore,” he says.

 

“I miss you,” she replies, instead of getting upset, and suddenly he falters.

 

“Brad, did you hear me? I said—“

 

“What exactly is the point of this conversation?” he asks. “Is this to assuage your guilt over something that happened so many years ago I can safely say that it has no bearing on my current or future well-being?”

 

Then she laughs.

 

For a second he is transported back in time to when these reactions felt right and perfect.

 

“What’re you doing tonight?” is what she finally says. “Come over.”

 

“I don’t—“ he begins and doesn’t get very far.

 

“Come on, Brad. I know you just got back from the UK; you can tell me all about the communist republic of England.”

 

“That’s an oxymoron,” he points out and has a vivid flashback to her saying—

 

“You’re a moron,” she says.

 

Brad startles himself when he laughs out loud.

 

“I’ll cook, you bring the wine. We’ll catch up, just the two of us. I’m a corporate widow, you know.”

 

“Better that than a Marine widow,” he says grimly.

 

She sighs, one of those sounds he remembers intimately well from their last months together. “Don’t be an asshole, Colbert. I miss you, and I would like to see you again sometime this decade. Come over and let me toast a war hero in person.”

 

So he goes.

 

\--

 

It’s late when Brad gets back home, but his hands are still shaking.

 

There are two messages on the answering machine. One’s from his sister, the other’s from Nate. His sister’s is an invitation to dinner over the weekend. Nate’s arriving over the weekend.

 

Brad sits down at the kitchen table and breathes into his hands. They still smell of sex, so he gets up and pours himself a glass of water then washes his hands.

 

The kitchen is blue. There are no plants. He has an Xbox in the living room and one toothbrush in the bathroom. The house aches with emptiness.

 

And now she knows he’s still in love with her.

 

\--

 

She calls again, two days before Nate lands.

 

“About last time,” she says awkwardly.

 

“Don’t worry,” Iceman says. “This isn’t a torrid love affair, and we’re not fucking Romeo and Juliet.”

 

She’s quiet for a long moment after. “I always thought we were,” she says. “After you enlisted, it fit. Things didn’t end well for them either, but—“

 

“Come over,” Brad says and itches at his chest.

 

\--

 

“Who was that?” Nate asks as Brad hangs up the phone. Brad just shrugs, smiles with half his mouth and drops his eyes.

 

“Fuckin’ Indian call centre,” he says.

 

Nate’s eyebrows lift quite high. “And yet you appear to have had a conversation,” he points out.

 

“She sounded hot,” Brad amends. “Like the woman on the road from Baghdad.”

 

It’s not one of Nate’s memories. Nate, who worried more about what holding babies was gonna do to his soldiers than pretty women in the crowd; Nate’s memories of beauty are all tied up in Brad and Babylon. Brad’s memories are all tied up in: how fucking green was the fucking desert even after they bombed the motherfucking shit out of it? Desolation and the occasional human contact, and suddenly gardens, even if it did stink of camel-shit and cordite.

 

Nate blinks at him, a slow, steady sweep of hazel. “Come here, Devil Dog,” he says, pulling at Brad’s shoulders. “I’m gonna fuck you up so good. Turn around.”

 

Nate’s finger burns on the way in; he likes doing this dry. And the truth is, Brad’s a little fucked up for Nate and the ache of violence.

 

“Hand me the oil,” Nate says in his ear.

 

“Yeah,” he replies, reaching for extra virgin.

 

It’s plain undignified to be doing this here with grit in his knees and the smell of dishwashing soap on the counter above him, but Brad’s drowning in everything Nate’s doing to him. This is what he imagined for his kitchen when he paid for it, bought the ring, went down on one knee. This and not this. Thing is, he imagined a woman, one particular woman, when he bought this house and he never updated that fantasy.

 

But she did come when he asked, and she hasn’t done that in years, as though the front door was a portal to the past that she’d moved on from. He wasn’t lying when he told Reporter he went over sometimes to see how happy they were with what he once had. He just hadn’t thought he’d been that obvious.

 

If he closes his eyes he remembers what it feels like to be drowning in her.

 

“Where the hell are you?” Nate says laughing. His finger jiggles slightly and Brad comes back home, feeling Nate, _Nate_ , in him.

 

“What the fuck, Nate. I’m falling asleep here,” he growls.

 

Three fingers slam into his ass and he howls. It’s like taking a shit on command, like giving up control of everything, not just your body, but your mind, everything about you. It’s trust and vulnerability and safe hands. Some days he can’t quite believe it’s Nate who eats his cereal and leaves beer bottles on the floor near the couch.

 

She’d left a wine glass on the table as they stumbled towards the bedroom forty-eight hours ago.

 

He remembers saying, Fuck, you’re tight, and scissoring his fingers gently. He hasn’t done this, had to do this, in so long. He preps her body for him, wants to slide inside her and stay there for a week. He can’t remember why he thought whores could ever replace this feeling.

 

She laughed. It’s been a little while, she said.

 

They both ignored the spectre in the room. Brad’s only real thought at the time was, what goes around.

 

“Jesus Christ, you’re tight,” Nate says, kissing behind his ear gently. “The Corps not giving you all the ass-fucking you need?”

 

Brad grins, back in the present. “At least you use lube,” he says.

 

\--

 

He smiles a lot at dinner, laughs at some of his brother-in-laws’ awful jokes and plays with his nieces. He catches Nate watching him a lot.

 

Half-way through he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. One new text message: _Come over._

 

When he sits back down, Nate’s foot curls around his ankle under the table. Brad chokes slightly and Hana smiles.

 

His phone buzzes again, in the middle of a story: _Come over after dinner then?_ He ignores it.

 

Nate’s looking at him, and Brad shrugs. “Person,” he says. “More whiskey tango redneck angst about leaving the Corps.”

 

“Obviously he’s waiting for you to beg him to come back to you,” Nate says with a sly grin. And oh, Brad is going to have to rough him up a bit for that. He lounges back, running over a few scenarios in his head, when Hana’s next words drag him out of it sharply.

 

“Half the girls at work are dying to meet you,” she says. “I have mistakenly confided in them over the years, my desire for you to not be such a pathetic sad-sack and start dating again. Of course, now that you are dating again” – she nods meaningfully at Nate – “and you are suddenly a war hero, they seem to think that it’s their sworn mission to mend your broken heart.”

 

Brad stares at her without blinking. “Are they all congenitally retarded?” he asks.

 

Hana glances at Nate for a just a second before rolling her eyes. “Whatever, Bradley. We all watched episode four. Now I know you’ve got this fine young Captain to keep you warm on the cold California nights that you spend together, but it’s not exactly common knowledge.”

 

“No, that would result in my losing my job, my pension and my status as a true patriot,” Brad agrees. “Just tell them I got my dick shot off in combat.”

 

His brother-in-law chokes on his wine. “Fucking hell, Brad,” he says, mopping at his shirt. “And a red too.”

 

“Learn to swallow properly,” Brad says smugly, and smirks as Nate and Hana groan in unison.

 

At home, Nate leans into him and laughs. “Nobody – _nobody!_ – would believe what you’re like out of uniform,” he says. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought in Iraq, but this is so much better.”

 

Brad’s pillow smells like women’s shampoo when Nate digs his head back in it. Brad’s mouth is slipping around his balls.

 

After they both come on Nate’s stomach, Brad traces his fingers through the sticky mess, scoops it up and feeds Nate a little. The rest he rubs into Nate’s skin; Nate sucks the residue off his fingers.

 

“Tomorrow I want to fuck your mouth,” Brad says.

 

\--

 

Nate leaves. Just for a short while. He’s got a longer break coming up soon, just has to get through a few more papers, defend a thesis or two. Small fry. At least that’s what he says when Brad asks. Nobody’s gonna die if I fuck up. It’ll be OK.

 

Fuck that, Nate is one of the most ambitious people Brad knows. He talks a shit game once you know him.

 

Brad hugs him close before he walks through to departure and thinks of all the ways he’s said goodbye before. “Fly safe,” he says.

 

He’s humming when he walks back to the car.

 

Episode six is on tonight. They’re watching it together.

 

\--

 

He doesn’t ask where her new-found freedom comes from; he doesn’t care. _She’s_ what he wanted out of the wreck of his former life. He does, however, suck in a breath at the sight of purpling marks on his collarbone and the scratches on his arm before he has to think back and remind himself that Nate never leaves a sign. It’s a long spiral back down from the adrenaline-filled rush of fear.

 

“What the fuck are we doing?” he says, once he catches his breath.

 

“Is that a Marine joke, Bradley Colbert?”

 

“Your sense of humour is like a nuclear wasteland.” He rolls onto her, dropping kisses against her neck. “Becca, what is this?”

 

“You and me,” she says, and the hand she lifts to his cheek is tender and the eyes she lifts to his are glowing. “Brad. And Rebecca.”

 

“You haven’t answered my question,” he says. He still has the ring somewhere. It hadn’t felt right to throw it away, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it back. The humiliation of it.

 

“Is that what you want?” she asks quietly. “Truly, Brad? Because, before.”

 

“I’m not an E-fucking-2 any more,” he growls. “I can’t promise I won’t be deployed again, but there are instructor positions opening up now.”

 

Sweat’s cooling on his back, and between her breasts. He bends down slightly and runs his tongue across her clavicle. It could be like this all the time for them. He’d never have to hide Becca, wants her so much.

 

\--

 

“Brad?” Nate says on his voicemail for the fourth time. “I uh, I don’t know if something’s happened, but I just wanted to say I booked my ticket. I’ll forward you the itinerary. See you in two weeks.”

 

\--

 

Brad does sit-ups in the blue kitchen until Becca comes home.

 

“We need to talk,” he says.

 

Her face goes pale under the California tan. She already knows the answer as she asks, “When?”

 

“In two months. They’re shipping us out to Iraq again.”

 

Brad hates Iraq. It’s a constant sore spot for him. He was there at the beginning, he knows the promise they’d had in victory. And OK, he doesn’t really give all that much of a fuck when the alternative is Americans bleeding and dying, but hindsight is bitter.

 

Becca sits down hard. “Brad,” she says, her voice something like a sob. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

 

\--

 

The second time is smoother, muscle memory. Becca hugs him hard, tells him she loves him. Tells him to come back safe, come find her. She doesn’t ask him to leave the Corps and he doesn’t offer. That battle was fought a long time ago and he should have known better.

 

He’s stalwart until she leaves, groceries still on the counter-top, tear-stained Kleenex on the table. He unpacks on autopilot, and stops short when he sees the six-pack he’d asked her to buy. Nate’s brand.

 

He takes the ring out too, one more time, before he wants it gone from his house.

 

\--

 

He manhandles Nate through the garage into the house, kissing him roughly, half-tripping him on the stairs.

 

“I missed you too,” Nate says breathlessly. “Brad. All I thought about. Just had to make it one more week before I could see you again.”

 

Brad knows objectively how this should go. Fuck first, heart-to-heart later. It’s a strategic manoeuvre for all concerned.

 

Instead he steps away and says, “We’re being deployed to Iraq in two months.”

 

Nate’s mouth clamps shut on an inhale. “Okay,” he says, leaning his head back against the corridor wall. “You couldn’t wait ten goddamn minutes to tell me?”

 

“Tell me now,” Brad says clearly. “Are we done?”

 

Nate stares at him.

 

“You’d consider putting this on hold while I’m deployed again?”

 

“You’re a Recon Marine,” Nate says firmly. “Where else would you be but the front, Devil Dog.”

 

The lump in Brad’s throat eases. The Nate standing in front of him today looks everything and nothing like his Lieutenant. He wants to say, “Come back with me,” but sense prevails. Nate is D.C.-bound.

 

He kisses Nate all the way to the bedroom.

 

\--

 

He wakes up later than Nate who’s still running on adrenaline and the time difference. By now there should be coffee and if Brad’s lucky, breakfast. He hums as he climbs out of bed.

 

Nate’s sitting at the kitchen table staring at the ring.

 

“What the fuck is this?” he says when Brad comes in.

 

\--

 

Brad wires Nate the money for the plane fare back to Boston; it’s the least he can do. He tries calling, tries emailing, tries apologising, never considers lying.

 

Becca and Nate are separate in his head, so far apart he hadn’t even been able to see what he was doing. He and Nate have never talked about monogamy or exclusivity; it’s not even something he expects. He can’t marry Nate, be with Nate publicly. Brad was one year old when Matlovich made the cover of _Time_ and was subsequently discharged from the Air Force, and things haven’t changed since then. Brad doesn’t want more than he can afford to accept.

 

Nate wants nothing to do with him.

 

Turns out Staff Sergeants can be as retarded in command as officers.

 

\--

 

Iraq is exactly what Brad expected: a little bit more fucked-up, a few more signs of hope.

 

Iceman’s back.

 

\--

 

America recedes when he’s on deployment. Fuck Survivor, he’d like to see those pussy bitches dropped into Fallujah for a goddamn week. Instead they sit around on tropic islands bitching and moaning because they can’t even mimic the skillset of Palaeolithic civilisations. That entire show is an embarrassment to the human race.

 

On his off days, he watches ‘Mean Girls’ with men. It plays over and over again in a never-ending loop while they come and go. It shouldn’t be soothing but it is. Next time he’s bringing Disney. Maybe ‘Bambi,’ all the better to fuck with their tiny heads.

 

His inbox, when he gets to it, has an email from his mother and a slew of replies to ‘REUNION’ from Rudy. The attached pictures are of Rudy and Nate in a DC bar. Everyone from Bravo Two, except for Brad, has already written back, including Nate. At the end of Poke’s message is a PS: ‘My baby girl wants to know when Iceman’s coming back to play house with her.’ There are quite a few replies to that email. Brad smiles at Poke’s email, ignores the rest and stares at a picture of Nate and Rudy side-by-side toasting the camera. Someone’s obviously taken the photo, someone with them? Someone Nate brought along, perhaps?

 

Nate’s eyes are still green though his hair is cut differently. He’s in a suit now, at ease in it from the line of his body. Brad tries to reconcile him with the LT and then to Nate who kissed him in his living room and liked to cuddle close on the couch. Becca slips in on the tail end of that image and Brad snaps to.

 

When he types, the words are slow but steady. He promises Poke’s progeny some genuine Iraqi sand from his ass-crack when he gets home; reminds Person that inbred, trailer-trash, paint-sniffing degenerates are about as welcome as guests as herpes on a virgin pussy; and to Rudy he writes that he hopes the LT paid for the drinks at least. He looks like he can afford it. He doesn’t address Nate directly.

 

Brad aches a little after he hits ‘send.’ He rubs at his collarbone and tries to run it off.  

 

Some days, the ache travels if he’s not careful. First his breast-bone, then his throat, then the pit of his stomach, the hinge of his jaw, the corner of an eye.

 

It’s not the time for revelations, but he has one anyway.

 

\--

 

When he gets home, he goes to D.C. Walks past a crying kid with her dad on the National Mall and lets it all the fuck go.

 

Iraq taught him the same lessons as the first time, everything Brad hadn’t wanted to learn: nobody gives a shit; there are bombs in the garden; command is fucked, his view of the world pitifully narrow; his body, blood and bone just barely enough to survive; you cannot fucking save the children; and he needs Nate. Nate fills all the secret holes inside Brad.

 

He heads for CNAS.

 

\--

 

The door barely closes behind them when Nate’s spitting, “What the fuck are you doing here?” at him. He’s furious when he’s backed into a corner. Couldn’t disown Brad at CNAS though he’d tried. Brad had played up the perfect soldier persona and asked Nate out for a drink (for old time’s sake). Check, motherfucker.

 

Nate took him home because home is safer.

 

\--

 

In the brown-and-white kitchen, Nate says, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I told you when I left never to contact me again. Don’t you know a fucking order when you hear one?”

 

The ache wraps around his left wrist now, a small circle of skin starving for touch. “I made a mistake with Becca,” he says. “I’m not proud of it, Nate, and I can’t take it back. But it’s not what I want anymore.”

 

Nate’s response is a loud “Get out.”

 

“I don’t just want to have sex with you,” Brad continues. “But I’m not allowed to have the things I want. And I doubt the military will keep listening if the CFO of its pet think-tank is discovered to be in a homosexual relationship with an active-duty Gunny Sergeant who once served under his command.”

 

 “Bullshit. You didn’t give a fuck before, why should you now? And ‘relationship’ is a generous word considering the circumstances of our last visit.”

 

“I thought it was my last chance at a relationship I didn’t have to hide from everyone but our immediate families.”

 

“It’s ironic, really, that you keep using that word. This is about comfort and post-deployment, isn’t it?” Nate nods a little. “Feeling itchy in your own skin, Brad?”

 

“No. I want you to listen.”

 

Nate says, “Then there’s the door,” in a low, rough voice.

 

“That’s what you think I’m here for?” Brad takes a step closer. “Sex?”

 

Nate scoffs. “You’re running so tight on adrenalin, you’re still at attention when you sleep. Tell me again how this isn’t a post-deployment fuck? Does it mean anything that you came to me instead of a whore?”

 

Brad stares at him for a second, but there’s no communication between them. “I’m not going to apologise for coming here,” he says quietly. “I wanted to see you again.”

 

“To what purpose?” Nate’s voice is deceptively calm. “Just filling in the gaps?”

 

Even with the hurt he caused, Brad questions the stupidity of the question. His answer is a dry, “Though my behaviour might have suggested otherwise, I’m not incapable of living without someone in my life.”

 

“As am I,” Nate replies, and Brad tries not to read his hopes and fears into those words.

 

“I wasn’t proposing to her, I was going to sell the ring.” This is the important bit Brad never got to say before Nate started yelling the last time.

 

Nate sighs loudly. “I don’t give a fuck about the _ring_.”

 

Brad holds his gaze as he says firmly, “I did. Nate, symbolic gestures may, by definition, be meaningless, but their existence holds significance as well.”

 

Brad doesn’t protest when Nate’s hand closes tight around his bicep.  “I loved her,” he says even as Nate’s hands tighten painfully against his flesh. “I loved her for a long time after she left me. She moved on; I didn’t. She was happy; I wasn’t. Until you, but I didn’t realise that until later. She called me when the show aired and things snowballed. I mistook the situation for a second chance.”

 

“Fucking groupies,” Nate says, dropping his arm, and yeah, maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s what it was for Becca, always had been the glamour of forbidden, desperate love between two people with very different ideals.

 

“I can’t walk away from you,” he says finally. “I’ve learned it doesn’t work like that.”

 

“So it’s not her you want?” Nate raises his eyebrows high.

 

“She can’t handle the Marines,” he said. “That’s what ended it the first time and that’s what ended it this time.”

 

“So that’s why you asked me if I wanted to end things while you were deployed.”

 

Brad looks down at his boots and the scuff marks on Nate’s kitchen floor. “You were coming to D.C.,” he said. “Your career was taking off.”

 

“The lost and betrayed look is really ironic at present. You’ll forgive me if I ignore it completely.”

 

“I loved her,” Brad said. “And then I realised that loving her made no goddamn sense. She was never going to be what I wanted her to be.” He looks up, meets Nate’s eyes and forces the truth at him. “I’ve no interest in anyone else. Ever.”

 

Nate’s mouth works as though he’s choking on words and then he turns his head to look at the refrigerator covered in pretentious little poetry magnets and bills. Here and there, buried underneath, Brad thinks he sees the colourful swirls of a child’s drawing.

 

“I don’t think I can,” Nate says finally. “You burned that bridge pretty thoroughly. I’m not going to do this because someone else broke your heart and I’m the safe option.”

 

He’s still not meeting Brad’s eyes but the expression is familiar. Brad saw it a hundred times in Iraq when Nate looked half-hunted and torn between two divergent North poles in his moral compass.

 

“Sir, safety is relative and irrelevant under the circumstances. Any chasm can be bridged with enough ingenuity, patience and perseverance.”

 

Nate’s eyes snap back to him. “I disagree,” he says, with awful finality. “And you should either leave or bend over.”

 

It’s a dismissal. Nate starts to turn, and if he does, Brad knows he’s lost. Once he can’t see Nate’s face anymore, all he has is the wide expanse of another back turned on him, and another door opening and shutting behind him.

 

In the split second that Nate’s profile is motionless, silhouetted by glass-paned cabinets, Brad stretches out to bridge the gap between them, and kisses him. Nate feels solid and real against him, substantial and eternal like a rock in the midst of shifting sand.

 

They break apart when Nate pulls back and stares at him. When he smiles it’s ugly and tight. “You want it that bad, huh? I bet you haven’t had a dick up your ass in eight months, unless you found an officer willing to fuck his career goodbye. Bend over, motherfucker.”

 

Brad doesn’t bat an eyelid at the way Nate’s swearing at him, or point out that Nate kissed him once in theatre, because Nate’s been out for years now, and they’ve been apart for ten months, and he wants this back.

 

Nate’s face is red and tight around the eyes and temples. Brad’s not sure if he’s more likely to cry or lash out when he finally breaks. And Nate is right in one sharp particular. Brad desperately needs this to settle back into his skin.

 

“If it’s a choice,” Brad says, hands deft with his belt and his fly. He leans over the sink bare-assed, eyes closed, hoping.

 

A hand lands lightly on his ass, traces the curve with a finger.

 

“Getting what you came for,” Nate murmurs.

 

“I—“Brad starts and has to grit his teeth, will his body not to react, tries not to flinch for the long minute Nate stays motionless.

 

He doesn’t startle when Nate’s finger pushes at his ass. He’s expecting that, barely manages to stifle the gasp as his sphincter is breached. It’s like a fucking surrender, every time.  How had he managed to overlook that?

 

Nate sticks a second finger into him, still dry, still burning. Brad can feel an ache settling where Nate’s forcing him open.

 

“You’re hard,” Nate says smugly from behind. “Fucking typical. You always did get off on being used like a bitch, Colbert. Is that why you loved her so much?”

 

Brad has to grab hold of the counter-top when the third finger enters him.

 

His breath goes hah-hah-hah as it escapes in tight, rough exhalations, perfect counterpoints to Nate’s rhythm. Fuck, it fucking hurts, and if Brad didn’t love it so much, he’d have gutted Nate with his KA-Bar.

 

“What now, Marine?” Nate asks and stills his hand.

 

“If you mean what you’re doing right now, that’s all I want,” Brad says.

 

Nate pulls his fingers out. “What?” he says, confusion husky in his voice.

 

Brad stays where he is, takes a deep breath. “Fuck me like you mean it,” he says. “You wanna own me, sir? Fuck me.”

 

Nate’s cock is as wide as three fingers and Brad is not ready for the girth forcing itself into him. He’s dry apart from sweat and maybe a little blood. It hurts enough to have torn him some but not enough that he’s gonna be bleeding for days.

 

“That’s it,” Nate pants against his spine. “You’re fucking mine now.”

 

The slap is high-pitched and stings. Brad drops his head a little further and fucking whines. “Jesus Christ, Nate.”

 

The hand in his hair is so rough tears spring in the corners of his eyes. He’s forced upwards head-first, Nate’s left hand balancing out the precarious grip on his scalp by squeezing his chin tight. “Why the fuck did you come back?” he snarls.

 

Brad stays quiet like a good Marine, spine seizing the longer he spends arched up like a bow. Nate’s body is digging into both ends of him, the fingers against his jaw press tighter and tighter until he’s gasping for air like a fish, and still Nate’s hands and body are a prison holding him in place.

 

When Nate lets go he doubles over gasping and slams a hand against the cabinet to keep from going head-first into it as he’s fucked forward. Nate’s hand closes tight around his cock and tugs. “Never let it be said that I don’t give you presents,” Nate says.

 

Brad’s eyes burn at this. “All I thought about in Iraq,” he says, as Nate begins to thrust. “Didn’t work it out fast enough. Thought you’d want to get married, have kids. Fuck, fucking fuck. Just do this on the side if at all.”

 

“This isn’t enough,” Nate announces as Brad’s head meets the back of his hand. He doesn’t try to move when Nate pulls out and – from the sounds of it – backs up. He can feel his body aching; he wants more. The sound of breathing spills in his ears and echoes in his body.

 

It takes a few seconds before he realises the only breathing he can hear is his. Nate still hasn’t moved, could be waiting for Brad to do something like shift position so that he can take it out on him some more. Brad chokes down the rasp in his throat and breathes again.

 

There’s still no movement but the air feels different now, charged with something sweeter and deeper than rage. Brad knows this scent, remembers it from—

 

“More,” he says hoarsely, spreading his legs a little wider. “Come on, Nate, fucking more.”

 

He can’t see or hear Nate but he can smell the salt when Nate repeats, “This isn’t enough. Brad.”

 

Brad closes his eyes and says desperately, “What the fuck else do you want? Anything.”

 

The oil, when it hits his skin, is a cool shock. Nate doesn’t try to rub it in, just drizzles until it spreads down the tops of Brad’s thighs and drips slightly onto the linoleum. Brad hears the slop of an oiled hand on flesh behind him and sags in gratitude.

 

This time when Nate slides into him, it’s a smooth glide. Nate’s fucked Brad wide open, fucked him to match the perfect diameter of Nate’s cock, in fact, so that Brad is the shape of Nate in at least one way. Nate pulls him backward into his body, sunlight dappling them and traces his hands over Brad’s tattoo.

 

“Brad,” he says, dipping his head down to kiss where his hands have been. “Just mean it this time.”

 

Home is an oasis in the desert. Nate. Here.


End file.
